


Narnia in 3+ sentences

by Syrena_of_the_lake



Series: Syrena's 3-sentence fics [1]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: 3 Sentence Ficathon, Anansi - Freeform, Chronicles of Narnia - Kangarooverse, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-22 07:55:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3721114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrena_of_the_lake/pseuds/Syrena_of_the_lake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>NEW: Ch. 14 and onward! Additional fills from 3 Sentence Ficathons hosted by caramelsilver and alette in 2015 and 2016. </p><p>Ch. 1-13: My contributions to the 2015 Three Sentence Ficathon hosted by the lovely Rthstewart. Several of these reference her characters as well - thank you for letting them come over and play!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 'Round the memory tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marmota_b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmota_b/gifts), [Heliopause](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heliopause/gifts), [ViaLethe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViaLethe/gifts), [Saoirse7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saoirse7/gifts), [AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/gifts), [lovepeaceohana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovepeaceohana/gifts), [RuanChunXian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuanChunXian/gifts), [ghostwings](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ghostwings), [Sidonie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sidonie/gifts), [caramelsilver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caramelsilver/gifts).



_Prompt: Hedgehogs, smeuse (“the gap in the base of a hedge made by the regular passage of a small animal”)_

 

"I never knew there was a word for that," murmured Peter with a growing sense of awe. Perhaps Susan knew of an Old Narnian equivalent, given her kinship with the small folk of the woods, and surely the Hedgehogs had their own term in their language of prickles and sniffles, and the Rabbits too, and - well, perhaps not the Squirrels, they were a little too excitable to engage in the contemplative act of Naming - and how strange it was to be learning more of Narnia while back in England. And yet... he could almost hear the quiet snuffles along the ground and the brush of quills against stiff leaves and knotty branches ... he could almost smell the sharp pine and the rich, damp loam ... he could almost see the little holes twisting through the hedgerows ... and oh yes, he could still remember the quickening pace and heartbeat when home drew near.

"There's a word for just about everything," said Richard gruffly, "in one language or another."

Peter smiled. "Tell me more."


	2. Disembark

_Prompt: _Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the voyage home__

 

Thereafter, every time Eustace saw a boat, he was momentarily blinded by the memory of white lilies, and every time he said a kind word he smelled salt in the air, and it seemed every mouse he saw in the garden paused to wink at him. Yet even in his dreams, he could not follow the coracle beyond that horizon. Every time he asked within the silence of his mind, he felt the answer like a brush of golden mane or grasses among the dunes:  _Not yet, my son, not yet_.


	3. Gentle as the stone not cast

_Prompt: Susan, "if the divine master plan is perfection/maybe I'll give Judas a try"_

 

Susan walked through the camp without seeing the barbed wire or breathing the ash. In her wake, spines straightened: she comforted hollow-faced children, reminded men that they were alive, and gently lifted the chins, eyes and spirits of the women.

Jadis, Miraz, Nazis... perhaps a godforsaken few would always bring misery to many, but Susan (girl-who-was-not-a-girl-but-always-a-Queen) was living testament to the truth that Aslan ever had and always would go to impossible lengths to put things right.


	4. Battle scars

_Prompt: battle scars, physical or emotional_

 

Of all her scars (and there were many), Willa was proudest of the one almost no Beast ever saw. Not the nick in her ear from the battle on Ettinsmoor, nor the puncture earned at Glasswater, nor even the slice across her left haunch left by her very first kill.

Under the soft fur of her belly was a thin white line where her firstborn daughter had sunk her teeth when she was nothing but pink wrinkles and helpless fury – and Willa had known that early that she had accomplished something grander than mayhem and sweeter than victory.


	5. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

_Prompt: They never saw that coming_

 

Collectively, the Narnia murder had become the world's most infamous and most successful cat burglar (the Crows delighted in the interspecies irony). The rules of time somehow seemed not to apply, for Crows all looked alike to human eyes and thus it seemed that the same perpetrator committed daring thefts across the globe simultaneously: sparkling jewels and sequined gowns, glass baubles and flashing metal trinkets disappeared in startling numbers. Before long, the phrase "something to crow about" began shifting in meaning, fashionable ladies around the world embraced costume jewelry as a less costly alternative, and insurance companies furiously revised their fine print; meanwhile, guests at Cair Paravel went unmolested as they gaped at diamond-bedecked Crows in the trees.


	6. Blue rose

_Prompt: any, blue rose (I chose Susan/Tebbit, in reference to Rthstewart's Queen Susan in Tashbaan)_

 

"I know you're not supposed to have a favorite, cousin, but I hope you will think of me when you use this poem."

Susan's slender fingers combed through his hair and she breathed "Read it to me," and as always he could deny her nothing.

"You, the blue rose of my dreams, are painted by the evening sky when naught is as it seems."


	7. Every cloud

_Prompt: _Lucy, sometimes even optimists need encouragement__

 

"And sometimes it seems as if all the world were filled with - with  _Marshwiggles_!" cried Lucy in dismay.

"There, there, dear," soothed Mrs. Beaver, "only Aslan could build Narnia in a day, you know - and I'm not so certain that it didn't take a even Him a bit longer than that. When things go too slowly, just think of how long the crocus bulbs had to wait for their first blooms!"


	8. The Bird, the Bees and the Cub

_Prompt: The Talk_

 

Morgan always knew this day would come, and she was naturally prepared. "Ask anyone in the Castle you like," she told her son, "except Jalur - he hasn't the patience for it - and maybe not the Physician... at least, not until your lessons are over for the day."

Prince Edmund wondered if that was another one of those jokes he would understand when he was older.


	9. Not in Nottingham

_Prompt: _Narnia, Susan and/or Lucy, learning archery__

 

"Where did you learn to hold an arrow - Telmar?" roared Master Roblang. "Arrow on the left, not the right - YOUR OTHER LEFT - and don't just stand there, your target isn't some cursed (ahem, excuse me, Your Majesty) rock - Aslan may have given you that bow, but He also gave you feet, so MOVE!"

Bone-weary but curiously happy, Susan later tried to recall where she had ever seen a bow drawn the wrong way, with one arrow at a time, from a stationary position. She had a fleeting image of a man wearing a feathered cap, but then it was gone and all she could see was the dummy target with her arrows clustered in its center. Her arrows, her aim, her arm - and the grace of Aslan.


	10. They say the clothes make the man

_Prompt:_ _Edmund and/or Peter in Spare Oom, the tailored suit is the armour of a modern knight_

No polishing required - that was a bonus. And the tailored suit was certainly more comfortable, though perhaps inadequate for horseback riding. But the most pressing and relevant point in its favor was revealed by his date, who practically purred as she loosened his tie: it was much easier to remove a suit of cloth.


	11. Great Expectations

_Prompt: _Peter, they set their expectations impossibly high__

 

Peter swallowed hard and tried not to look too closely at the painfully hopeful faces gazing upon his crown. They expected too much - he was just a boy, really, one who was awfully good at maths but who, frankly, was bloody awful at declensions and keeping the many Richards and Henrys straight in his mind.

But now he was a king, the first and only High King of Narnia, whom no schoolchild (did they even have school here?) would ever mistake for another.

\---

Peter had a bizarre sense of _deja vu_ walking across the quadrangle at Oxford. Stone bishops with upturned noses gaze upon him and seemed to find him lacking, and Peter smiled inwardly. He had risen to impossible challenges before and wiped similar smirks from far more intimidating countenances - including true living stone giants. 

He may have to upend a few expectations along the way, but King Peter had built a road and rebuilt a nation, and anyone who said he was fit only to muddle his way through the classics could go hang.


	12. An education in the classics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: another take on "they set their expectations impossibly high," with an addendum inspired by heliopause, who suggested Peter extricate himself from the situation by declaiming something from Spare Oom...

Why Princesses persisted in asking his sisters how to woo him or about his prowess on the, er, field of battle, so to speak, Peter had no idea. Unfortunately, neither did he know what exaggerated tales Susan and Lucy had been telling their Impressionable Visiting Highnesses, though clearly a lot of deliberation and wine had gone into the telling.

"Oh, King Peter," the latest victim swooned, "will you recite the poem you wrote in my honor? I hear it is  _magnificent_."

\---

She huffed with indignation early, at "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun," and as usual, "why then her breasts are dun" earned him a sharp slap and a respite, until the next Princess at any rate.

"If you ever find one who lets you finish, you should keep her," drawled Dalia, wrapping her tail around Peter's legs.

Peter stroked her golden head and finished the recitation to himself in silence: 

_And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare  
As any she belied with false compare._


	13. The height of a man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Erlian, there were Giants in those days

No one ever spoke to the young Prince Tirian about how his father died. This was rather silly, because Tirian was a sharp lad (did you ever know a dull boy who befriended a unicorn?), and he heard how carefully people avoided certain words - he was always  _gangly_ , never tall,  _growing_  but not large, and his art professor always stumbled over the sculpture dubbed Colossus. 

Had Tirian been a different kind of boy, he would have gone about exclaiming how  _huge_  the sword seemed in his small hands or how  _enormous_  the general's hounds were - but instead he kept mostly silent, speaking unreservedly only with Jewel.


	14. In the lamplight, the withered leaves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from ghostwings: Chronicles of Narnia, Susan Pevensie, memories

Three decades after their deaths, Susan still saw their faces reflected in every lamppost. Her heart had stretched to accommodate the sorrow, and so she greeted every lamp as an old friend: Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, shining softly in the snow; Reepicheep, glinting in the midday sun; Mr. Tumnus and Caspian and Trufflehunter and Trumpkin, the ages blurring together down the ranks of Whitehall and under Admiralty Arch; and there, in St James Park, with the murmur of water at her back and damp grass underfoot, she could sit on the ground (was it a little harder than it used to be?) and lean against the solid iron and be once more surrounded by her brothers and sister.  
  
And if, when twilight fell and the lamps flickered on, she spoke to them, only the Crows would know.


	15. An unkindness of ravens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from sidonie: Any, any, And love's a raven when it flies

Susan tried not to think of the blood that might have been spilt, but for the courage of a horse and his boy — the horror of what had come to pass was enough without dwelling on might-have-beens — but, try as she might, she could not put Rabadash from her mind.  
  
When first he courted her, the Calormene prince had won her heart through poetry, astonishing her with his insight into her soul as he compared her not to the glory of jewels or the delicate beauty of wildflowers, but rather to the parts of Narnia she loved most dearly:  
  
_Thy touch like needled pine boughs dancing 'cross my gloveless hand,  
Thy bearing fierce and regal as the hawk upon the wind,  
Thy silence filled with meaning as wise field-mice fill the glen,   
Thy spirit curling gentle as a wolf within her den —  
  
Were I before you now, instead of halting written words  
Struck mute with longing as the midnight sky yearns for the birds,  
Then I might wish for sparrow's wings or lilting thrush's song  
I might desire to be the wind, or to the woods belong —  
  
And yet. Yet if, oh gracious queen, one precious wish had I  
For treasure deeper than the sea and broader than the sky  
And dearer than the woods, and even stronger than the stone,  
Then humbly I would thus entreat you: grant to me alone  
The radiant southern sun that gently shines within your eyes  
And tell me that your love, once given, like a raven flies.  
_  
  
Even now, she admired the words (even too late seeing the subtle mind behind them), but she too could twist their meaning:   
  
_Where once my Raven's heart had flown too reckless, swift and true,_  
Now wary, watches from the shadows — all for love of you.


	16. Written by the victors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by seal_nonnie: any, any, who tells the story

In the dead world of Charn, she remained standing while her enemies turned to dust underfoot, and so she was the victor; conveniently, she was also the only one left to tell the tale.

In her brief sojourn into London, Jadis was satisfied at the grandeur of her every action in that young world — what marvelous stories they would tell of her once she reigned once more!

But in Narnia, she discovered to her vexation that conquering the land did not raise her voice above all others; she was perpetually forced to chase after rumors, persecute legends, stoop to slaying shadows out of stories, always wondering whether the Lion of furtive tale and whispered song might be that first Storyteller, conjurer of worlds — and the White Witch vowed to herself that somehow, she would have the last word.


	17. Diplomacy for Carnivores 101

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from caramelsilver: Susan and Edmund, diplomacy

"Diplomacy is for prey," growled Edmund, dropping his voice in an admittedly pitiful attempt at reaching the rumblingly low registers of a Leopard.

"That is hardly a constructive comment, Edmund," snapped Susan, "and this seminar will never work if you don't take rehearsal seriously."

"It won't be very constructive if our audience eats us out of sheer boredom," Edmund began, before quailing at the look on his sister's face and adding hastily, "and besides, I'm just roleplaying likely responses — it's called 'method.'"


	18. The decisive choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from shipperchan_dna: Edmund, choosing what is right in difficult times

_Good_  did not always mean  _right_ : that was a subtlety that Peter had never understood. Edmund saw a forest of branching possibilities, some paths better than others, better  _for_  others; his brother approached every problem like the flip of a coin — right or wrong, with no room for interpretation or doubt.

Yet in the end, Peter was more than just his brother — and so Edmund picked up the brightly colored rings in a handkerchief and prepared to follow his High King to the end of the world.


	19. Kangarooverse: The Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from silvr_dagger: Any, any, trickster

"Anansi is welcoming the little Kings and Queens back to their round world," the Trickster god whispered, "but be much warned — there is a monster in the hall. She pinched Anansi's toes with her pointy shoes and hit his legs with a broom!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Lucy, "I'd quite forgotten Mrs. Macready!"


	20. Like a deer yearns for running streams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from lizzie_marie_23: Narnia, Lucy + Aslan, "but it's warm inside his eyes"

**1\. Fur coats**

As oppressive as the Witch's winter had been, Lucy had never quite been able to rid herself of the memory of magic: from sullen, dreary grays to the sparkle of snow on evergreen boughs. It is she, that first True Winter, who teaches the Narnians how to love the season, which had been not lost but subsumed.

"It's cozy," Lucy tried to explain, "like wrapping yourself in a fur coat on a cold morning," but she broke off laughing at the Beasts' puzzled looks, for of course they already had fur.

**2\. Gifts**

When the battle was won and the wounded had been tended to, Edmund and Lucy tried to talk. He told her of the Thaw, of hearing the birds wake from their stupor, of feeling the trees stir against his back and under the ropes that bound him there, and he flushed in shame at the contrast of such vile reminders with the joy he tried in vain to describe.

"But don't you see?" asked Lucy, her eyes shining, "that's it exactly!"

**3\. Doors**

Flickering like a candle between woman and child, Lucy stared at the wardrobe door as if it might open and beckon her home. She was cold, standing barefoot in her shift, until she felt the floorboards creak and a warm weight settled upon her shoulders.

"I've been told that things never happen the same way twice," said Professor Kirke, so kindly that Lucy's eyes brimmed with tears, "but if you pay close attention, I think you'll find what you're looking for — if only when you least expect it."

**4\. Train station**

In the end, which was not really the end, Lucy did not feel cold. All the stories said she would, both here and There, but perhaps stories could not say everything that needed to be said after all.

Even before the light, the laughter, the golden mane and the green valley, there was a radiant warmth, and somehow Lucy saw his eyes even without looking, and she whispered: "Aslan."


	21. What do they teach them in these schools?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from marmota: Narnia, any, the war on Christmas

Even at his age, Edmund liked to argue every side of any debate, so of course he brought up the news out of America as often as possible; Peter always tried to moderate; and Susan rose above it all, at least until she forgot and jumped into the clamor with the rest of them.

It lasted until Lucy spoke up: "Those who talk of the war on Christmas are forgetting two things — the meaning of  _war_  and the meaning of Christmas." 

At that, even the most contentious youngsters in the family quieted — because even those who had only heard stories about the Witch and perhaps thought them fairy tales knew that Lucy never told a lie.


	22. Under a harvest moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompt: Any, any, o god of yesterday, listen and be near me

Back in England, Lucy caught glimpses of Aslan — the brush of his mane in the tall grasses, his roar in the approach of a train, his warm eyes in a stranger's face — and gradually she learned to see him everywhere.

But some days, and especially nights, the calm English countryside grated on her; here, where even the crickets were subdued, Lucy longed to fling herself with abandon into the branches of a Beech dryad or kick up her heels and dance with a circle of Fauns.

"Lord Bacchus?" she whispered to the woods at the edge of the Professor's estate, hoping for some breath of wildness to stir her hair and her heart — but the trees remained silent.


End file.
